New facts emerge about 1975 downing of Polish aircraft

New facts have emerged about the downing of a Polish plane by communist
Czechoslovakia’s air force in 1975, resulting in the death of a Polish
citizen trying to flee to the west. For three decades the circumstances
surrounding the incident have been veiled in secrecy, but now the veil has
been lifted.

Wojciech Jaruzelski
According to the newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes, on July 16th, 1975 two
MiG-21
jet fighters and two L-29 aircraft belonging to the Czechoslovak air force
were
scrambled to intercept a civilian biplane flying from Poland towards
Austria. The biplane was shot down by one of the L-29s near the Slovak
border town of Kuty, just eight miles from Austrian airspace. The sole
passenger – the Polish man piloting the plane – was killed. The
incident is now being investigating by Polish and Slovak authorities.

The newspaper claims the incident was hushed up by the communist
authorities, who attempted to pass it off as an accident. A historian from
the Slovak archives who is working on the case says this is partly because
even in communist Czechoslovakia, shooting down an unarmed civilian
aircraft was illegal.

Mladá Fronta Dnes also managed to track down the pilot, who says he knew
what he was being asked to do was against the rules of engagement, and
requested clarification from his superiors several times before pressing
the trigger. His commanders apparently contacted their counterparts in the
Polish air force, who told them they had received personal instructions
from the then Defence Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski to shoot down plane –
Jaruzelski later of course became the president of communist Poland.

As to bringing the case to trial, that may be difficult, as it’s 34
years old and involves the jurisdictions of three countries - the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Poland. At present it’s being investigated by the
Slovak police in Trnava, who have asked for documents from their Czech and
Polish colleagues.

Presumably if the evidence is gathered there could be a criminal
prosecution, although the pilot says he was just obeying orders from his
commander, General Jaruzelski is 86 and already being tried for unrelated
offences, and the most senior Czechoslovak official who allegedly knew
about it – former defence minister Jaroslav Obzina - is dead.